Voice detachment part 2: remove remaining localhost:8888 consumers (follow-up to #112)

[virtualian]

Summary

Follow-up to #112 (merged via PR #138). That PR performed the surgical ripout of the voice notification hook path + Algorithm phase announcements + THENOTIFICATIONSYSTEM docs — 31 files, 1125 lines deleted. It deliberately left ~60 other in-repo files that still POST to localhost:8888/notify on the grounds that they were outside #112's explicit 8-part scope. This issue tracks finishing the job.

After #112, nothing in the PAI-side critical path uses the voice server any more. Everything enumerated here is dead code calling a server that PAI itself no longer runs.

Motivation

• Dead code accumulation. Every remaining curl localhost:8888/notify is a silent failure waiting to happen when the server isn't running. Skills open with one, agents inherit one, templates hand the pattern out to every newly-created custom agent.
• Template propagation. DynamicAgent.hbs, CUSTOMAGENTTEMPLATE.md, CreateCustomAgent.md, and ComposeAgent.ts still teach the voice curl pattern to newly-generated agents. Until those are fixed, every new custom agent is born with dead voice wiring.
• Grep noise. Anyone reading the codebase with grep localhost:8888 gets ~60 hits across unrelated surfaces — expensive to mentally filter when triaging anything else.
• VoiceServer/ in the repo. Contrary to Remove VoiceServer + Notification system from PAI #112's "outside this repo" wording, Releases/v4.0.3+/.claude/VoiceServer/ ships the full server deployment (729-line server.ts + install/start/status/menubar shell scripts). That's 10+ files of pure dead weight after Remove VoiceServer + Notification system from PAI #112.
• Orphan exports. PAI/Tools/TranscriptParser.extractVoiceCompletion and hooks/lib/output-validators.{isValidVoiceCompletion, getVoiceFallback} exist solely to feed the deleted VoiceNotification.ts handler.

Scope — 5 groups

Each group is independently shippable. The person executing this can bundle into one PR (like #112) or ship 5 sub-PRs — whichever the maintainer prefers.

Group A — VoiceServer/ infrastructure deletion

Delete the entire Releases/v4.0.3+/.claude/VoiceServer/ directory. After Group B lands (or in parallel — they touch no common files), nothing in the release tree references anything inside VoiceServer/.

Files to delete (at least):

• VoiceServer/server.ts (729 lines)
• VoiceServer/start.sh
• VoiceServer/status.sh
• VoiceServer/install.sh
• VoiceServer/menubar/pai-voice.5s.sh
• whatever else lives under that directory (recursive rm)

This is pure deletion, ~800+ line reduction, no downstream logic impact.

Group B — Production code path removal

Delete the voice POST calls from the 6 production .ts files that still talk to localhost:8888:

File	Lines	What
hooks/UpdateTabTitle.hook.ts	225-240	POST on prompt submit. Has a "DO NOT REMOVE" guardrail comment pointing at MEMORY/LEARNING/SYSTEM/2026-01/...voice-on-prompt-submit-architecture.md — read that memory first to confirm the deletion is okay
hooks/handlers/DocCrossRefIntegrity.ts	370-380	POST for doc integrity announcements
PAI/Tools/pai.ts	35, 91	VOICE_SERVER constant + fetch call
PAI/Tools/algorithm.ts	53, 641	VOICE_URL constant + prose reference
PAI/Tools/IntegrityMaintenance.ts	787-802, 973	sendVoiceNotification() function + call site
PAI-Install/engine/actions.ts + validate.ts	17, 165, 845, 859, 1180	Installer health probes + shutdown + test-notify. Also remove voiceEnabled from installer state (engine/types.ts:159, engine/validate.ts:199, engine/actions.ts:*, public/app.js:11, 71, 371) so fresh installs stop re-introducing the field

Plus the orphan exports these hooks were feeding:

File	What
PAI/Tools/TranscriptParser.ts:191, 364	extractVoiceCompletion() — only consumer was the deleted VoiceNotification.ts
hooks/lib/output-validators.ts:44, 59	isValidVoiceCompletion() + getVoiceFallback() — same story

Typecheck every touched .ts file after removal to surface any remaining callers.

Group C — Skill markdown curl sweep

Strip the uniform curl -s -X POST http://localhost:8888/notify prefix blocks from the skill tree. Same mechanical pattern as #112's agent-file strip — a small bun script with indexOf/slice will handle it cleanly. Approximate target set:

• skills/Agents/SKILL.md
• skills/Agents/Workflows/{CreateCustomAgent,SpawnParallelAgents,ListTraits,*}.md
• skills/Media/Art/SKILL.md + skills/Media/Art/Workflows/*.md (9 workflow files)
• skills/Media/Remotion/SKILL.md
• skills/Utilities/Aphorisms/SKILL.md + Workflows/{AddAphorism,SearchAphorisms,FindAphorism,ResearchThinker}.md
• skills/Utilities/PAIUpgrade/SKILL.md + Workflows/{Upgrade,FindSources,ResearchUpgrade}.md
• skills/Utilities/Documents/SKILL.md
• skills/Utilities/Prompting/SKILL.md
• skills/Utilities/CreateCLI/SKILL.md + Workflows/{CreateCli,AddCommand,UpgradeTier}.md
• skills/Utilities/Evals/SKILL.md
• skills/Utilities/Browser/SKILL.md
• skills/Scraping/Apify/SKILL.md + Workflows/Update.md
• skills/Scraping/BrightData/SKILL.md + Workflows/FourTierScrape.md
• skills/Research/SKILL.md
• skills/USMetrics/SKILL.md
• skills/Security/AnnualReports/SKILL.md

Full authoritative list: rg -l 'localhost:8888' Releases/v4.0.3+/.claude/skills/. ~35-40 files total.

Group D — Skill creation templates (CRITICAL — stops the propagation)

Fix the templates that teach newly-created agents and skills to emit voice curls:

File	What
skills/Agents/Templates/DynamicAgent.hbs:65	Handlebars template that emits a voice curl block into every dynamically-composed agent
skills/Agents/Templates/CUSTOMAGENTTEMPLATE.md:137, 149	Example/reference template for manual agent creation
skills/Agents/Workflows/CreateCustomAgent.md:8, 115, 120	Workflow that guides users through creating custom agents — still instructs them to wire in the curl
skills/Agents/Tools/ComposeAgent.ts:655, 671	The actual TS composer that generates agent files — emits voice curl strings into the output
skills/Agents/AgentPersonalities.md:674	Test instruction referencing localhost:8888

This group is the most important. Without it, every new custom agent keeps getting born with dead voice wiring, even after Groups A/B/C land.

Group E — Remaining docs + legacy algorithm

• PAI/SKILL.md lines 237, 269, 285, 298, 308, 319, 336 — the 7 per-phase voice curls (Observe/Think/Plan/Build/Execute/Verify/Learn). Remove VoiceServer + Notification system from PAI #112 explicitly scoped this out so it'd need a separate call.
• PAI/SKILLSYSTEM.md lines 242, 601 — remaining prose references
• PAI/Algorithm/v3.5.0.md lines 26, 116 — legacy Algorithm spec still has voice curls. Remove VoiceServer + Notification system from PAI #112 touched only v3.7.0.
• settings.json — check whether PAI-Install still re-seeds voiceEnabled / notifications.voice on fresh install; if so, update the installer template output too

Preserved intentionally (DO NOT delete)

• 🗣️ Viki / 🗣️ {DAIDENTITY.NAME} lines in response format output. These are text summary signals — Remove VoiceServer + Notification system from PAI #112 preserved them and so should this PR.
• daidentity.voices.*, voiceClone, mainDAVoiceID, voiceId in settings.json. Per Remove VoiceServer + Notification system from PAI #112 Q1: multiple non-voice consumers still read this data (identity.ts, migration/validator.ts, migration/extractor.ts, etc.). Removing the data would cascade into an identity.ts refactor.
• ~/.pai/MEMORY/VOICE/voice-events.jsonl — frozen archive, never touched.
• UpdateTabTitle.hook.ts's "DO NOT REMOVE voice" guardrail memory at MEMORY/LEARNING/SYSTEM/2026-01/...voice-on-prompt-submit-architecture.md. Read it before touching that hook's voice path — there's a documented past incident.

Suggested commit / PR shape

Option 1 — One big PR (mirrors #112): 5 commits, one per group. Expect ~1500+ lines deleted, ~70 files changed. Similar review experience to PR #138.

Option 2 — Five small PRs: file a sub-issue per group, land independently. Lower blast radius per PR; more process overhead.

Recommendation: Option 1 if the maintainer has bandwidth, since each group is low-risk and the whole set is mechanical. The only group that needs careful thought is Group B (voice-on-prompt-submit memory + installer state).

Verification gates

For any PR addressing this issue:

• Grep rg 'localhost:8888|Notify\\.ts|VoiceCompletion|VoiceNotification' returns zero hits in release tree
• bun build --target=bun --no-bundle on every touched .ts file
• bun -e 'JSON.parse(readFileSync(...))' on any touched JSON
• Fresh install via PAI-Install does not re-seed voiceEnabled or notifications.voice (verify by reading the generated settings.json)
• Creating a new custom agent via skills/Agents workflow does not include a voice curl block in the output
• The "DO NOT REMOVE voice" memory referenced by UpdateTabTitle.hook.ts has been read and the deletion reason documented if voice is removed from that hook
• 🗣️ Viki lines still present in NATIVE/ALGORITHM/MINIMAL output format specifications

Related

• Remove VoiceServer + Notification system from PAI #112 — primary ripout (merged via PR Remove VoiceServer + Notification system from PAI (#112, closes #83) #138)
• Voice plays despite settings.json voice.enabled: false #83 — closed by Remove VoiceServer + Notification system from PAI #112 as "won't fix — system removed"
• feat: Granular notification control — per-channel toggle with curl suppression #27 — referenced in the original Notify.ts design
• Backport runtime Algorithm v3.7.0 + CLAUDE.md improvements to Releases/v4.0.3+/ #111 — runtime CLAUDE.md cleanup that kicked off the voice de-emphasis trend

Release note (draft)

Removed (part 2): The final traces of the voice notification system have been cleaned up. The VoiceServer/ directory, all skill-level curl localhost:8888/notify announcements, skill-creation templates that taught the voice curl pattern, and the orphan voice extraction utilities are now gone. Combined with #112, PAI has no remaining dependency on the localhost:8888 voice server.